My resolutions were soon formed. At sunset I crept as close as I dared to the bastion, and with a telescope examined it from every point; but the bourgeoisie who manned it soon discovered me; a salute was fired in honour of my appearance; the bullets of their arquebuses fell thick around me in a shower as I crept back, and escaped to mature my plans and perhaps to--pray. CHAPTER XXIII. THE BASTION DE LOUISE. Dundrennan, Sir Quentin Home, the Chevalier Livingstone, and other gallant gentlemen of the troop were anxious to share with me the honour of this perilous enterprise; but, aware of the danger--the almost certain death--to be incurred, I peremptorily declined all assistance, and resolved to achieve the deed alone, or pay the penalty of my own folly. The firing languished as usual after sunset, and before nightfall had completely ceased. I clasped on my cuirass and gorget, buttoning over them the doublet of a Lorrainer who had been killed last night in the trenches. It was of dark cloth, faced and trimmed with the colours of duke Charles. I put on a light helmet, stuck four pistols in my girdle, and leaving my sword, took only a dagger. I had a light ladder, ten feet long; a rope, a hammer, and a pocketful of spike nails; and with this apparatus, when the miners were at work, and the out-guards or covering parties sleeping in their blankets, capôtes, or rocquelaures, I issued from the camp, and leaving all behind, advanced on my solitary and desperate enterprise towards the Bastion de Louise. Frequently I paused to listen; but no sound came from the town, the ramparts and church spire of which--for it had but one--towered above me in the dark and moonless sky, across which the clouds were hurrying in black and broken masses. As I crept on my mission, strange thoughts of home and of other times _would_ force themselves vividly upon me; and I remembered the green breezy braes, and the grassy dells, where the mountain runnel brawled under the broad-leaved water docks or the purple heather, and bright yellow broom, where as a boy I had played among the lambs, and gathered the white daisy and the golden buttercup, or watched the white smoke curling from the huge hall chimney of my father's old grey tower. To-night I might be slain--slain far, far away; and I thought of the quiet green grave where my father and mother slept so peacefully side to side in the old kirkyard at Glenkens, and a wild, deep wish rose from my heart to my lips that I was at rest beside them, and away from the selfish hurry of life and all the horror of war! Anon came hope of success, and prouder thoughts arose within me, and grasping my dagger, I continued to creep stealthily forward.